The Jewish Woman Who Was Just Cast On SNL Is One Of The Internet’s Funniest People

Ever since Vanessa Bayer, who gave the world Jacob the Bar Mitzvah Boy, the cast of Saturday Night Live has been in desperate need of funny Jewish women. (In fact, it’s not clear how they’ve been making the show up to this point without them.)

The show that launched the likes of Gilda Radner, Rachel Dratch, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus will welcome another Jewish funny girl — Chloe Fineman. It was announced on Thursday that Fineman will join the cast of Saturday Night Live for the show’s 45th season, along with comedians Shane Gillis and Bowen Yang — Yang will be the first Asian cast member in the history of the show.

Here’s what we know about Fineman, 31, hours after the casting news:

She went to Jewish summer camp. She is one of the most skilled impersonators working. Her dad is trying to start a conspiracy about pebble-theft at their local Jewish cemetery.

Let’s take it from the top!

The 31-year-old Fineman hails from Berkeley, California, where she attended Camp Kee Tov, a Jewish day camp associated with local Reform synagogue Congregation Beth El (cheers to our colleagues at the J newspaper of Northern California for this tag-team Jewish geography effort.)

Via copious Instagram stalking, we have established that Fineman has two sisters — visual artist Emma, and crossfit champion Alexia, who goes by Leka. Her parents are Ellen Gunn, a celebrated painter, and David Fineman, a biotech executive. Reader, we don’t know how else to say this — the whole family is good-looking and funny. Peep this video of David Fineman exposing unethical Jewish ritual behavior at his mother’s gravesite. Watch until he whispers, “Not a true mensch.”

A post shared by David Fineman (@dfineman1) on Aug 14, 2018 at 11:21am PDT

But back to Chloe! She studied at NYU Tisch, then moved to Los Angeles to improvise with the famed Groundlings theater (that’s Kristen Wiig’s improv school, too). Fineman has appeared in small roles on major network shows like “Jane the Virgin,” “Grown-ish,” and “Search Party.”

Fineman, together with reigning SNL empress Kate McKinnon, will be electric. We’ll see them together when the show returns on September 28. Mazal tov, Chloe! And don’t forget — the best way to make your Jewish fans proud is for you and Kate to perform a sketch showing the backstory of the Jewish cemetery theft incident.

Jenny Singer is the deputy life/features editor for the Forward. You can reach her at Singer@forward.com or on Twitter @jeanvaljenny

Inside Susan Alexandra’s Bat Mitzvah-Themed Show At New York Fashion Week

Last week, emerging accessories empire Susan Alexandra became an adult in the eyes of the fashion community. To showcase the brand’s new collection at New York Fashion Week, founder Susan Korn, staged a bat mitzvah-themed show that she described in a press release as “glittery, frilly, baby pink dream of any 13-year-old girl, but just as appealing to everyone else.”

For Korn, who has been making jewelry since 2014, the bat mitzvah theme was more than just a gimmick. Her trademark Susan Alexandra beaded bags gained cult status after supermodel Gigi Hadid posed with one on Instagram last year. Now her plastic creations, which evoke the glitz and kitsch of childhood, are coveted by all kinds of grown-ups across the country. To keep up with demand, Korn has a team of over forty women crafting her designs by hand in Queens. Last fall she made her New York Fashion Week debut, and this year she’s making a foray into clothing for the first time. Susan Alexandra is coming of age.

And in front of five hundred friends, family, and fans at Manhattan’s Public Hotel, she had her big day. The Fashion Week event combined a designer’s eye for aesthetics with a bat mitzvah girl’s love of glitter. Jewish LGBTQ+ activist Adam Eli — who wore a custom bedazzled kippah for the occasion — launched the event with a short speech. Eli is no stranger to Susan Alexandra’s unique aesthetic, having participated in her NYFW debut, in which a cast of transgender models took over — what else? — a SoHo bagel shop. On Instagram, he noted that since religious spaces can be alienating for queer people, it was especially moving to see “my two cultures mingling, thriving, and taking selfies” at the event.

Instead of reading the Torah, a diverse cast of models — from New Yorker writer Naomi Fry to Jewish comedian Cat Cohen and drag queen Steak Diane — modeled girlish silhouettes, flashy headpieces, and whimsical appliqué details. At the show’s conclusion, all-lesbian Klezmer band Isle of Klezbos commandeered the stage, and Korn was hoisted above the crowd in a chair while attendees danced the hora.

While she’s come a long way since her own bat mitzvah, Korn credits that stage of her Jewish life for helping develop creative flair. Attending the flurry of services and celebrations for friends was “my first time going out into the world and really expressing myself with clothing, shoes, jewelry, bags,” she told Teen Vogue. One thing is for sure - the exuberance and mishegas of bat mitzvah season is no longer just for kids.

Irene Katz Connelly is an intern at the Forward. You can reach her at connelly@forward.com

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Though Bader Ginsburg was dismissed and demeaned in her early career while her husband was heralded as a star, he made it clear who the true star was. Ginsburg was her cheerleader, at times her legal assistant, and the chief of domestic chores in their home. Taking on the stereotypical role of the canny politician’s wife, he entertained and schmoozed on her behalf, including a campaign to get her off President Clinton’s short list for the Supreme Court, and on to the bench.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg recently shared some crumbs of marital wisdom with another power couple — Jennifer Lopez, and her fiance, Alex Rodriguez. Lopez, who stars in the movie “Hustlers,” out this Friday, met the Supreme Court judge this summer in Washington D.C., during a stop on her world tour.

“I admire her so much for all the things she’s done, standing up for minorities and women and fighting for justice in this country, but also for her marriage,” Lopez told Good Morning America on Tuesday. So Lopez asked — not for career advice, or secrets to longevity — but marriage advice. “I was like, ‘What’s the secret?’” Lopez said.

The actress said that Bader Ginsburg responded, “Sometimes it just helps to be a little bit deaf — if you hear an unkind word, let it go.”

The tenacious defender of civil rights letting things go? The Ginsburgs’ marriage lasted 56 years, until Martin Ginsburg’s death in 2010. Seems like the Notorious RBG knows of what she speaks. Alex Rodriguez announced this week that he will be inviting his ex-wife to his wedding, so the Justice’s words may prove timely.

Ginsburg did not, however, ask Lopez for any advice on pole dancing, a skill the actress picked up for “Hustlers.” Sometimes, apparently, it helps to be a little deaf.

Jenny Singer is the deputy life/features editor for the Forward. You can reach her at Singer@forward.com or on Twitter @jeanvaljenny

Here Comes An Adam Sandler Movie About Shady Jewish Diamond Dealers

An obnoxious, money-obsessed, sexually harassing Jewish diamond dealer in midtown Manhattan gets caught up in a betting and debting scandal involving professional athletes.

That’s the plot of “Uncut Gems,” a thriller by the filmmaking duo the Safdie brothers, due out this December.

Before your fingers fall off in a rush to google “Safdie brothers Jewish?” we’ll save you the trouble — yes, they’re Jews. So are producer Scott Rudin, co-writer Ronald Bronstein, and stars Adam Sandler and Idina Menzel. In fact “Uncut Gems,” which got rave reviews at the Telluride Film Festival earlier this month, is based off their father’s experience as a New York City diamond dealer.

It’s hard to imagine a stranger time to explore the real Jews — diamond dealers, bankers, real estate agents and more — whose careers become generalized into discriminatory stereotypes about Jews as a people. As American Jews of all stripes panic about our safety — and Orthodox Jews in Crown Heights experience violent danger — “Uncut Gems” feels extremely Bad For The Jews.

But if Jews wait for less hostility before making art that examines facets of our community, we’ll be waiting until the messiah comes. Reviewers say the Safdies’ movie is genius, and that Sandler — who’s clearly turning a corner in his career between this and “The Meyerowitz Stories” — is at the height of his powers. Compare this to the recent propagandistic “Red Sea Diving Resort,” also based on a true story, which showed Jews as lusty heroes of mankind, but did squat for filmmaking.

No doubt “Uncut Gems” will have Jews across the country reaching for their benzodiazepines. But if audiences choose to see the story of a single Jew as representative of us all, well, maybe they’re the creepy ones.

Jenny Singer is the deputy life/features editor for the Forward. You can reach her at Singer@forward.com or on Twitter @jeanvaljenny

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Jenny Slate Got Engaged At An Abandoned Castle In Southern France

Jenny Slate — notoriously likable giant-haired celebrity underdog — is now engaged. The “Parks and
Recreation” actress and Iconic Jew said yes to Ben Shattuck, her hot writer-slash-painter boyfriend, who proposed this week in a dilapidated castle in the south of France.

Like the print on a hand-drawn Anthropologie table runner come to life, Shattuck — a haunted-looking artist who lives on a tiny island off the coast of New England — asked Slate to marry him, less than a year since the couple reportedly started dating. Taking her to “an abandoned castle in Southern France,” (his words), Shattuck set out a picnic, declared his love, and presented Slate with a ring the size of a porcupine, according to her Instagram. Each half of the couple published a series of photos illustrating their relationship, in addition to the engagement announcement.

What? Do we sound cynical? Allow us to paraphrase God: Jenny Slate is our beloved and our beloved is Jenny Slate. We’ve loved her since “SNL” and “Marcel the Shell.” We’ve loved her in good times, like “Obvious Child,” and bad times, like “Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked.”

Shattuck, announcing the engagement on his own social media, shared a picture of Slate “in front of a door the color of her soul.” (Jenny Slate’s soul is turquoise, allegedly.)

We, Slate’s fans, are loathe to cede her to coupledom because she seems tenderly, impossibly, vulnerable. “Hi it’s me I’m your little toy/pet/clown,” she captioned an Instagram post in April. “And no joke I’ve realized that all i care about is loving and giving/getting treats and finding all of the best ways to do that!”

This is the woman who dated professional hunk Chris Evans, aka Marvel’s “Captain America,” on and off for two years. As we watched in horror, Slate — who was previously married to Dean Fleischer-Camp — fell in love with America’s sexy stepson, got her heart broken open, and proceeded to, by her own admission, sit alone in a bar reading about the Holocaust.

Jenny Slate is a human avatar for every woman who has ever felt a little different, and we cannot see her wounded again. So Captain America’s gone? Good riddance — Jenny never seemed like much of a nation-states gal. But when the abandoned French castles and Instagram-able doors are out of sight, Ben Shattuck had better be up to the challenge of partnering with our Jenny Slate.

Jenny Singer is the deputy life/features editor for the Forward. You can reach her at Singer@forward.com or on Twitter @jeanvaljenny